


Snapshot Of Invisible Monsters

by Astarloa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astarloa/pseuds/Astarloa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no such thing as an ordinary life, only invisible monsters. And there’s no such thing as invisible monsters, only ordinary life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshot Of Invisible Monsters

The town is small and easily forgotten. Dead and gone, just not quite buried.

Take a moment to blink and you’ll miss it. 

Empty storefronts line the main street, buildings old in a way that have nothing to do with antique. Sagging wood presses tightly against faded red brick; a sprawling memorial to the never-glorious past held together by strips of peeling paint, metal bars, and graffiti.

Signs announce out-of-business sales that finished years ago, while a naked mannequin watches the world stumble by from behind dusty glass. 

It’s a place where people live between the cracks and have done for so long that no one tries to claw their way out anymore. All they can do is build sandcastles in the dirt and issue whispered invitations for others to join them. There’ll always be someone who thinks it’s not so bad, who says yes, and yet others still with no choice in the matter. Creation myths about ragged fingernails and resignation would replace God and the gospels if anyone cared enough to tell stories. 

And besides, what use are Jesus and his fish, if it comes to that? Belle’s Diner serves fried chicken on Sundays. That’s good enough. 

Dean can still taste the grease against his teeth when the door swings shut behind him, the cracked ring of a bell marking his small family’s departure. Streetlights shine weakly. John scrubs a cheap, paper napkin over Sam’s mouth as they cross the road, hand comically large as it cradles the back of his brother’s head, trying to hold him in place. 

At Sam‘s muffled, “Daaaad!” John surrenders with a wry smile, tossing it away onto the sidewalk.

They walk down the block towards the car.

It’s parked on the curb, hugging the shadows with a shiny black of its own. Dean flings himself inside the moment John unlocks the door. He can hear Sam climbing into the back, complaining when the seatbelt sticks from being pulled out too quickly. 

Same old, same old. 

Sam’s sitting on the left, directly behind the driver’s seat. If Dean turned his head he’d have an interrupted view of a frustrated frown and jeans patched at the knee, grubby fingers struggling with the catch. 

That’s the rule, that’s how it works: driver does the driving and shotgun watches Sam. Or tosses stuff at him, depending on the mood and how much Dean feels like teasing.

There’s a short, sharp slam of the door and jangle of keys as John slides into the driver’s seat. The engine turns over with a familiar rumble, idling and discontent, insects dancing in the glow of the headlights. 

They drift out onto the road without speaking. 

On the outskirts they pass a building whose neon sign casts candy-coloured promises of booze and sex across the windscreen. Dean catches the faint sound of frantic laughter and smashing glass, ragged guitars whose music's fallen two steps behind the beat; fun trapped inside a desperate flirtation, slip sliding over the edge towards something bad. He understands it in the complicated way that children do. Strands of imagination and truth weave knots of meaning that his adult fingers will pick at but never completely untangle.

Then John stomps down on the gas, fingers tapping impatiently against the wheel, and it all disappears in a storm of loose gravel and exhaust fumes.

By the time they hit the highway the needle’s sitting pretty on ninety.


End file.
